We ran out of crows, so if you were hoping for a picture of four crows you’ll have to resort to Google Images. Sorry.

Someone chimed in to let us know about credits for a subtlety described in the post The Stripper Fakes A Breather.

I’m a fan of planned spontaneity, and I like this post! It’s something I didn’t know about so I’ll be sure to try it in my hands. Strategically placing the deck against the box for them to cut a specific way is a subtlety from Barrie Richardson’s Theater of the Mind. Worth mentioning! -DJ

It’s absolutely worth mentioning, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing it to my attention! It’s very possible that my usage originated from that book. I’ve certainly never read it, but I can’t remember if I learned that subtlety from someone else or if it was an independent creation, so it’s definitely plausible that I picked it up from someone who picked it up from Theater of the Mind.

If you ever read something here that seems like it could use some crediting, please don’t hesitate to let us know. It’s never intentional that we write about something that someone else has previously written up, but it’s unavoidable that it will happen. The post has been updated accordingly.

Definitely try it out in your hands plenty and get a feel for how reliable it might be if you’re going to try this with a participant. This is pretty experimental, it’s just something I’ve been doing.

Next, we have an email about Stop Using the Same Damn Decks.

First off, thanks for an excellent magic blog!

Second, as a person who started collecting cards before I got back into magic, I can’t stress enough how validating that post was!

Being known as an impromptu borrowed deck guy and card collector makes it so easy for me to just perform magic, and when I do slip in some sort of gaff/gimmick into my lineup, it gets zero scrutiny, unless I’m trying to cycle through decks in the same performance, which is just bad performing, as well as unconvincing magic XD

I get that some performers, especially professionals, have a persona that requires them to be a “casino Bees” type person as their standard, but highly recommend and second most magicians just adding a bit of variety to their deck choices.

Selfishly, for ‘moves’ people, it will also just make them better at handling decks overall, as you get a feel for cards of different stock and quality. -NK

We’re very glad you enjoy the blog, and I’m very glad you enjoyed the post! You brought up a great point I didn’t think to mention about handling decks. When I’ve been using standard USPCC cards for long enough, I’m definitely hampered a bit by the difference when I suddenly try to use a deck produced by a different company.

There’s some people that have good reason to use the same decks all the time. Jason Ladanye springs to mind as someone we’ve written about before. However if you’re Jason Ladanye, or anyone like him, you don’t have much reason to be using gimmicked decks to begin with.

It’s always hard to tell how opinionated posts like that will be received, so it’s great to hear that you got something out of it. Thank you for writing in.